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Our very own 'Lego' Chemist

When Tim Goddard is not acting as our Laboratory Manager for General & Inorganic Chemistry, he can be found designing and building intricate models out of Lego. So good is the end product that he has been involved in writing books and was approached by Lego’s headquarters in Denmark to an early product development workshop, working on the ‘Chima’ range of sets that are currently in the shops.

Tim has been into Lego for most of his life and still has some pieces from his childhood and comments, “One of the best things about Lego is that it lasts forever and pieces decades old are still compatible with all the pieces made today”.

After discovering the Adult Fan of Lego (AFOL) scene, specifically the Brickish Association about 6 years ago, Tim has been attending several public shows each year to display his models. These events can be attended by close to 10,000 people. The work he is best known for includes micro scale science fiction models, but has also been known to dabble in other areas. He produced a model of the ‘Curiosity Rover’ for the recent television series Star Gazing Live broadcast on the BBC.

He also designed and built the models for one of the six chapters in Dorling Kingsley ‘The Lego Ideas’ book which has been massively successful and has sold over half a million copies topping the New York Times nonfiction best seller list, and has just finished working on a sequel, ‘The Lego Play book’ which is due out in October. Following on from this, Tim was contacted by an independent publisher to create another book, Lego Space – Building the Future, which is aimed more towards the adult Lego builder as well as science fiction fans in general. Tim comments, ‘This book is also due out in October as long as I can build all the models in time!’